Dark Dark Dark – Wild Go

Minneapolis based chamber-folk sextet Dark Dark Dark revel in the wonder that is around us always. On their breathtaking sophomore album Wild Go, the band has created a stirring reminder to seek out that magic. Their dramatic sound sets Nona Marie Invie’s soaring, haunting voice against age-old instrumentation that evokes the soundtrack to a beautiful film.

The 10-song collection is a marked evolution for the group, which began in 2006 as a collaboration between multi-instrumentalists and singers Nona Marie Invie and Marshall LaCount. These two inspired songwriters bring together disparate influences – including minimalism, New Orleans jazz, Americana, Eastern European folk, and pop – creating something altogether singular and absolutely epic. This diversity is their greatest strength. They use contrast – in texture, tone, and imagery – to build their own deeply-experienced world into the songs. For example, on the single “Daydreaming,” Invie’s warm voice and piano are supported by sparse and clean drums, a guitar with lush reverb, and cascades of dirty and distorted banjo, while an accordion wanders its way through harmonies.

For Wild Go, the group expanded the sound they captured on their 2008 debut, The Snow Magic. They’ve continued with the line-up that solidified on their critically-acclaimed Bright Bright Bright EP, and pushed further with more nuanced arrangements and more personal content. The songwriting is shared by Invie and LaCount, while the band then crafts their parts and the arrangements. They credit a few years and constant touring with helping them to mature and collaborate to shape the music and its impressions on listeners. They’ve achieved a real kinship and communication that is evident in the way it pulls us in to their experiences. Wild Go will connect with listeners and transport them into Dark Dark Dark’s mesmerizing vision of a world within this world. They don’t settle for the ordinary, and they ask that we come along.

“…perhaps Dark Dark Dark’s true accomplishment here is how they mix sounds and influences so effortlessly. They comprise a tight, intuitive unit, especially when the instruments swirl together into an otherworldly eddy of sound.”
Pitchfork